Nikon Monarch Rifle Scope Review

Nikon has been in the optics market for a long time, and is best known for their camera and non-hunting optics business. However over the last decade, Nikon has been progressively making a push into the hunting and sporting optics market. Today, Nikon manufactures a variety of binoculars, spotting scopes, rangefinders, and rifle scopes specifically for the hunting market. Chances are good that you or a hunter you know has tried out one of Nikon's products. For this review we are going to take a look at the Monarch series of rifle scopes.

If you are new to the Nikon lineup of rifle scopes it can be a bit bewildering to figure out their product lineup. Nikon's rifle scopes are loosely broken into three lines: ProStaff, Buckmasters, and Monarch. ProStaffs are Nikon's entry level scopes, they cost the least and perhaps offer the most bang for the buck. Buckmasters are a step up with improved light transmission and larger selection of objective sizes and magnifications. Monarch rifle scopes are the pinnacle of Nikon's lineup with the best light transmission and a variety of features.

Unfortunately the Monarch group of scopes is further subdivided into several different lines. For purposes of this review we are only covering the standard Monarch line. Nikon also offers the Monarch Gold which have 30mm main tubes, the Monarch African which are offered in low power lightweight designs. Finally there is the "X" series which is more of a tactical configuration with optional mil-dot reticles and various external turret configurations.

The Monarch lineup of scopes offers a standard one inch main tube and 4x magnification range. Nikon offers the starting power in no less than 7 starting points (2, 2.5, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8) which gives the following magnification ranges and objective sizes: 2-8x32, 2.5-10x42, 3-12x42, 4-16x42, 4-16x50, 5-20x44, 6-24x50, and 8-32x50. Throw in various finishes and reticle configurations and the standard Monarch line comes out to twenty-four different cataloged scopes.

For this review we will examine in more detail the 8-32x50ED SF scope with BDC (bullet drop compensation) reticle, which is Nikon product #8480. This scope is at the top of Nikon's Monarch series and has a list price of $980, but the typical street price is around $700.

All Monarch scopes offer what they call "Eye Box Technology", which is 4x times power magnification and a constant four inches of eye relief. Eye relief is the distance from the eye piece to your eye. The farther your eye is from the scope the less likely you are to smash your eyebrow against the ocular piece under recoil. Longer eye relief is usually more comfortable on the eye as well.

In our testing the four inches was about right at 32 power, but at 8 power the eye relief was closer to an impressive five inches of eye relief. So while it wasn't constant it was nice to have at least 4 inches at the high power. Nikon has done a good job of keeping the eye relief relatively constant, since...